Euler’s differential equation and the identification of the magnetic point‐pole and point‐dipole sources

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Abstract

The concept of point‐pole and point‐dipole in interpretation of magnetic data is often employed in the analysis of magnetic anomalies (or their derivatives) caused by geologic bodies whose geometric shapes approach those of (1) narrow prisms of infinite depth extent aligned, more or less, in the direction of the inducing earth’s magnetic field, and (2) spheres, respectively. The two geologic bodies are assumed to be magnetically polarized in the direction of the Earth’s total magnetic field vector (Figure 1). One problem that perhaps is not realized when interpretations are carried out on such anomalies, especially in regions of high magnetic latitudes (45–90 degrees), is that of being unable to differentiate an anomaly due to a point‐pole from that due to a point‐dipole source. The two anomalies look more or less alike at those latitudes (Figure 2). Hood (1971) presented a graphical procedure of determining depth to the top/center of the point pole/dipole in which he assumed prior knowledge of the anomaly type. While it is essential and mandatory to make an assumption such as this, it is very important to go a step further and carry out a test on the anomaly to check whether the assumption made is correct. The procedure to do this is the main subject of this note. I start off by first using some method that does not involve Euler’s differential equation to determine depth to the top/center of the suspected causative body. Then I employ the determined depth to identify the causative body from the graphical diagram of Hood (1971, Figure 26)